Girl who performed at Obama’s Inauguration Shot Dead

As NPR’s Cheryl Corley reported on Morning Edition, 15-year-old Hadiya “was an honor roll student, a volleyball player … and a majorette with the King College Prep band.” She and her bandmates had traveled east earlier this month to take part in the Presidential Inauguration Heritage Music Festival — a competition for bands from around the nation that was held near Washington. ABC News says the band also performed “during an inaugural brunch event at Howard University” in Washington.

The Chicago Sun-Times adds that Hadiya and others in the band also “attended the president’s inauguration” presumably along with the hundreds of thousands of others who packed Washington’s National Mall.

Tuesday, Hadiya was among a group of teens gathered in a park when someone opened fire. She was shot once in the back, Cheryl reports, and later died. Two other students were wounded. Chicago police think the shooter may have thought the young people were part of a rival gang — though there’s no indication any of the kids were in a gang.